Morning Light at Hunstanton

In addition to the possibility of a stunning sunset, Hunstanton can also provide beautiful lighting for morning bird photography as the sun climbs above the cliff accentuating the intricate plumage of our winter waders, gulls and egrets. Sanderlings are always a challenge but worth the chase!! 

Oystercatchers at Hunstanton

 I returned to Hunstanton beach on Monday morning before heading home and spent a couple of hours in beautiful light with thousands and thousands of birds as subjects. The tide was going out revealing the extensive mussel beds and the tidal sands full of invertebrate food. Oystercatchers were the most numerous so here some cameos of this striking bird. The distant shot was part of a failed attempt to focus stack the huge flocks!

Hunstanton Sunset and Xmas Fair

I stayed 3 nights in Hunstanton over the weekend and took my camera for a walk each evening - two of them had good sunsets (usual quiz question - in what East coast seaside town can you view the sun setting over the sea?) The first one is particularly curious with a bird apparently sitting on the sun! The long exposures were all done with the Olympus live composite facility which builds up the image in 1 second exposures on top of an initial exposure. During some of these I moved the camera.

 

Fascinating Fulmars

 Fulmars are one of the British birds that have steadily increased in recent years and Hunstanton cliffs certainly support this with many more birds there this visit than previous. Adults spend a large portion of their lives at sea, returning in November  to set up territories.  Eggs are laid in May. In July, the parents depart to resume their oceanic wandering, leaving the chick to fend for itself.  By early September, the youngster will be ready to follow in the wake of its parents.  Young birds spend the first four or five years of their lives at sea, and do not reach maturity until they are eight or nine years old but they may live for up to forty years.  Here a few shots from Saturday's visit.

Hunstanton Birds

There were impressive numbers of birds on the beach at Hunstanton yesterday, probably more than usual as it was a spring tide so the mussel beds were exposed at the very low tide. Curlews remain my top wader both in flight and camouflaged feeding on the ground but Bar and Black-tailed Godwits are near contenders. The cameos between the Egrets and other waders were amusing and showed their relative size against the Herring gull and Redshank